Commissions will not solve the youth crisis in English football. Managers will, owners will, coaches will.

On February 21, Hull City appointed Tony Pennock, a former journeyman goalkeeper from the lower leagues, most famous for a horrible mistake in goal for Yeovil Town, much beloved by compilers of blooper reels.

Hull poached Pennock from Swansea City but as he wasn’t a player the news garnered no headlines nationally. Felix Magath was the new manager of Fulham, and Wayne Rooney was on the point of signing his new contract that day. Pennock’s title is academy and community manager.

VIDEO Scroll down to watch Greg Dyke discuss the problems with English football

Back in the day: But Hull have signed up former goalkeeper Tony Pennock to oversee local development

In charge: Hull boss Steve Bruce has pinpointed local youth development as a problem area

COMMON SENSE AWOL AT ALBION

It took West Bromwich Albion 26 days to appoint Pepe Mel and probably not much longer to realise they had made a terrible mistake. He was in charge for 123 days, won three matches in 17 and was sacked this week.

Vincent Tan took some beating but the worst boardroom decision of the season was West Brom’s dismissal of Steve Clarke in December. Common sense must return to the Hawthorns this summer if relegation is to be avoided and not merely postponed.

Put the word community into any job title in football and eyes glaze over. The national media passed over the announcement and the local newspaper rated it worthy of no more than six paragraphs.

Yet even in a season when Hull have reached Europe and, on Saturday, make their first appearance in an FA Cup final, Pennock’s arrival may be the most significant development at the club in decades. The role of the new man is to arrest a barren period stretching back to March 25, 2000.

On that day, occupying 18th place in the fourth tier of English football, Hull lost 1-0 at home to Darlington. A teenage central midfield player called Adam Bolder was in the side. He was sold to Derby County two days later. And this remains the last time a local player rising through the youth ranks reached 20 appearances for Hull City; 14 years ago.

Lone ranger: Adam Bolder, here playing for Burton, is the last local player Hull produced

It is not as if Hull have been charting a wholly stellar path since, either. Fortunes have greatly improved of late — as the Wembley fixture with Arsenal indicates — but the time since Bolder’s last game still includes four full seasons in the fourth tier, one in tier three and another six in what is now called the Championship. And still no local heroes.

This is what Pennock has been charged to address, by manager Steve Bruce. A former Manchester United captain, who saw first-hand the impact a vibrant youth policy can have on a club, Bruce’s take on Hull’s homegrown void is straightforward. ‘Where are all the young players from Hull?’ he asked. ‘There are too many chimney pots here for there not to be any footballers.’

And he is right, of course. Hull City has a huge catchment area in East Yorkshire, rising north to Middlesbrough and west to Leeds. A local penchant for rugby league offers no explanation, either. The whole North West has to put up with competition from the oval ball, and it is not as if those clubs are bereft. Bruce has now ordered what has been termed a root-and-branch review of how Hull scout for players in the under-eight to under-16 age groups.

Celebrate good times: Hull's topsy-turvy history has improved of late

Jermain Defoe says he is devastated to be left out of England’s World Cup squad.

This feeling is something he should have anticipated when making the decision to sign for Major League Soccer side Toronto.

Roy Hodgson is an old-fashioned football man. He will perceive the MLS as inferior and Defoe as all but retired. And he’s not far wrong.

The aim is to create a category two standard academy, which is what Pennock did at Swansea. At the moment, Hull are the only category three club in the Premier League, and pitch their young players in with Scunthorpe United and Burton Albion, not the top tier.

Obviously, that has an effect. The focus from here will be on local areas, too, such as the working- class constituency of East Hull and Holderness, north of the city, rather than familiar hunting grounds in Ireland.

Pennock has begun by sounding out leading youth-team coaches in the Hull Boys’ Sunday League, feeding new names into junior structures that Bruce has been determinedly overhauling. Hull now have the beginnings of a youth development squad in the under 21 age group, under the guidance of Stephen Clemence.

Seriously, though, what took them so long? The most mystifying element of this is how a club like Hull — and there will be many others that are similar — became so detached from football’s essence that they have gone 14 years without producing a player worthy of their shirt?

Muddled: Greg Dyke has faced severe criticism for his FA Commission including the 'B-Teams' scheme

The news that John Terry has signed a one-year contract with Chelsea should not surprise.

On the club’s part, any other outcome would have been madness.

Greg Dyke, the Football Association chairman, said he found the thought of Manchester City winning the league depressing, because only two of their first-team regulars, Joe Hart and James Milner, are English. Yet at least clubs pursuing a place among the elite have mitigation for the number of expensive imports in their team. They are looking to compete with Real Madrid or Manchester United and that is not going to happen in the current climate without substantial cost.

Yet why were no players coming through at Hull when the club were in the fourth tier? That is the question Bruce has been asking. ‘We’re going to have to improve the whole youth structure,’ he said. ‘We need to push it along and start producing our own.’

This is why the hasty response of Dyke’s commission, with its talk of B-team leagues and feeder clubs, is so misjudged. Correction is coming, naturally, because a combination of home-grown player rules and financial fair play make the old ways unworkable. Abolish the loan system to prevent stockpiling and we would almost be home.

Change will happen because Hull will start next season’s Europa League campaign with a squad of 21, not 25, as UEFA insist four players must have been developed by the club. Nobody fits the bill beside fourth-choice goalkeeper Mark Oxley, who is now ineligible having spent last season on loan at Oldham Athletic.

Party time: But Greg Dyke found Manchester City's title win depressing

Clearly, this cannot go on, but a B
league or an arrangement with Lincoln City would not solve it. Getting
the numbers of young English players up is about individual will: a
manager who realises resource-sapping use of the transfer market is
inefficient, an owner who is willing to back a long-term plan with the
necessary investment. On July 1, Hull City’s academy will relocate to
Bishop Burton, a further education college specialising in agricultural
and equine matters and possessing outstanding sports facilities. A way
forward is emerging.

Howard Wilkinson, one of the commission members, joined Dyke in his gloomy presumption that English participation will continue on a downward trend. Yet that is not the present mood. It is precisely because young players are beginning to come through that Roy Hodgson has been able to name England’s youngest World Cup squad since 1958. Any club who are not, right now, ploughing resources into youth development are out of step with current trends.

Dyke, too, picked the wrong target in Manchester City last weekend. He should not be depressed by them. No club in the Premier League have shown greater long-term commitment to youth than the current champions. Cynics may regard the Etihad Campus as little more than a PR exercise, but there is tangible impact and progress which suggests, whatever the motives, the results will be hugely beneficial to the English game.

There are two projects at Manchester City. The short-term throwing of money at world-class players to get inside the gates of the Champions League castle before the elite clubs and UEFA upped the drawbridge; and the long-term establishment of an academy providing future generations of players, without the need for huge spending.

Champions: But Man City have heavily invested in youth development as well as the first team

On Sunday, after Dyke had singled out City for criticism, the club made a firm counterpoint by having their Premier League trophy carried out by three English representatives — two of them captains and with the club since primary school age — of their very successful under-11, under-14 and under-18 teams, who are all national champions. In addition, Manchester City’s under-16 team now holds the record for the most England junior internationals from one club in a season: seven.

So while City may not be the finest standard-bearers for English football right now, the hope is for change and the club are investing in making that change. Like Hull, they may only be on the ground floor, but concepts such as the elite player performance plan and the changes to pitch and goal sizes at junior levels are in their infancy, too.

Only 24 per cent of the starting players in the Premier League were English this year. ‘Do we wait until that becomes 20 per cent, or 18 per cent?’ asked Dyke. No, because it won’t. The tide is turning. English football does not need another big idea. A few hundred little ones will work just as well.

Odds have been cut on Gus Poyet becoming the next manager of West Ham United, but that seems unlikely. Poyet has done an excellent job at Sunderland and is very ambitious.

He would seem perfect for Upton Park. Yet the last two seasons have seen him agitating to leave, first Brighton and Hove Albion, and now Sunderland, after performing impressively.

If he did well at West Ham would this not just become the next stepping stone, as Poyet eyes a future at Tottenham Hotspur, say, or Chelsea?

West Ham certainly couldn’t afford that, a year away from the move to the Olympic Stadium, and a few rival owners may feel the same. The upshot should be that Poyet stays where he is.

Applause: But Gus Poyet, saviour of Sunderland, has been touted for the West Ham manager's job

Micah deserves his medal

Micah Richards played only two Premier League games for Manchester City this season. He lasted 71 minutes in a 1-0 defeat at Sunderland and the whole game against West Ham at Upton Park, where City won 3-1.

Yet Richards will not get a title winner’s medal as only those who have appeared in five matches qualify. This is nonsense, and always has been.

Manchester City won the league by two points and, against West Ham, earned three. Richards’s presence could have been vital that day. The league, we often hear, is a marathon, not a sprint — so why treat it like a cup final, where only those on the pitch that day are rewarded?

Anyone who played so much as a Premier League minute for Manchester City should have their contribution acknowledged. How much credit they wish to take for this involvement, and whether they then put that medal on display, is more of a personal matter.

McClean's dirty dive was a despicable act

QPR won and so the incident fades into insignificance, but James McClean’s dive during Monday night’s play-off second leg was one of the most despicable acts of the season.

His team, Wigan Athletic, were leading 1-0 when McClean went through one on one in the first half. He tapped it wide of goalkeeper Rob Green and then threw himself to the ground, as if taken out.

Fortunately, Mark Clattenburg, the referee, spotted this and showed him a yellow card. Had McClean succeeded he would have won a penalty, probably ending the contest at 2-0, and Green would have been sent off.

There is no way QPR could have recovered.

In those circumstances, a booking hardly seems sufficient. Deceit of such a nefarious nature, with far-reaching intended consequences, could easily be worthy of red.

Shameful: Wigan star James McClean was booked for diving in the play-off semi-final against QPR

And while we're at it...

Marianne Vos won the women’s inaugural Tour of Britain, and then made a very good point about gender equality in sport. Vos said that women’s cycling was popular in Britain because it had grown side by side with the men.

Olympic heroes and household names such as Victoria Pendleton came to prominence at roughly the same time as Sir Bradley Wiggins, so we see no difference in the two versions.

In the strongholds of continental Europe, cycling was a male sport first, so the women’s events are seen as slower, shorter and therefore less compelling.

The same is true over here with football, rugby and cricket. Having been immersed in the men’s game for so long, the women’s game is seen as a Lite brand.